Here's an article sent to me of major interest re Miami. I do not have the link.
ALBANY, N.Y. — Tucked in the far corner of a locker room inside MVP Arena sits a 21-year-old college basketball player worth a reported $800,000. Across the room is his teammate, the one whose agent threatened to send him packing if he didn’t get a pseudo-salary increase.
This is maybe a bit simplistic — even slightly unfair — summation of the Miami men’s basketball team, but it is not inaccurate, either. Nowhere in the Sweet 16 is the new world order of college athletics more well represented than within the Hurricanes locker room. While the NCAA dithers with how to regulate NIL and other coaches wring their hands with worry about its impact, Miami has unapologetically jumped in with both feet.
Backed by a brazen billionaire booster who has no qualms about sharing his financial investments, the No. 5 seed Hurricanes are led by Nijel Pack, the pint-sized point guard transfer from Kansas State who supposedly pocketed the northside of three-quarters of a million dollars, and Isaiah Wong, the aggressive leading scorer, who used Pack’s good fortune to improve his own situation.
There is nothing wrong with what Miami is doing. While the NCAA sanctioned the women’s team for improper contact with John Ruiz, the booster/owner of LifeWallet, and his very public courting of the TikTok-starring Cavinder twins, the men’s team was not even part of the investigation. And so it comes down to, really, a simple question: is Miami a renegade, or simply ahead of the curve? “I use this analogy,’’ head coach Jim Larranaga says. “I asked our players if they’ve ever seen Steph Curry in a Subway commercial, and everybody has. I said, ‘OK. That’s NIL.’ You can make some additional money. That’s what NIL was made to do, and that’s what they’re doing.’’
All of that serves as the explanatory backdrop to Ruiz’s hobby, for lack of a better word, and why, when states began to break down the last walls separating college athletes and payment, he found a new way to spend his money. He earmarked $10 million for Miami athletes in the first year of NIL. “Obviously the University of Miami was good for me, but it’s been great for a lot of kids,’’ he says. “You want to do good in your community. This is my community.’’
Ruiz’s NIL bankrolling isn’t entirely different from the various collectives sponsored by alums at schools across the country; it just so happens to be funded by one man. It’s more the very public way he broadcast his investments and the implications of his methods that raised people’s hackles. Per the NCAA language, “While opening name, image and likeness opportunities for student-athletes, the policy in all three divisions preserves the commitment to avoid pay-for-play and improper inducements tied to choosing to attend a particular school. Those rules remain in effect.’’ Which is where it all gets messy. The language is nebulous at best, and wildly subject to interpretation, but there seems to be at least consensus: Actively and publicly wooing players with deals is not done.
And yet there was Ruiz, perceived at least to be running right up to — and in one case perhaps crossing over — the line in the span of a rather busy three weeks at the start of the 2022-23 preseason. On April 13, 2022, Ruiz posted a picture outside his home with Haley and Hanna Cavinder, the social media-famous basketball twins who were transferring from Fresno State. Ten days later, on the same day Miami announced Pack (a first-team All-Big 12 guard) had transferred in, Ruiz tweeted his own “breaking news,” announcing not only his company’s NIL partnership but the terms of the deal.
One week after that, Wong’s agent, Adam Papas, threatened a transfer if Wong’s comparatively low $100,000 NIL pot wasn’t sweetened (Wong later distanced himself from the threat). Ruiz initially played hardball, telling ESPN that he “did not renegotiate” but later tweeted that he looked forward to helping Wong, who led the Hurricanes to the Elite Eight a year ago, find more deals. It all eventually landed in the crosshairs of the NCAA, but only the dinner with the Cavinder twins was deemed impermissible conduct and the chef-prepared dinner Ruiz served that night as an inducement. “NIL adjacent,’’ is how the national governing body termed the whole case.
ALBANY, N.Y. — Tucked in the far corner of a locker room inside MVP Arena sits a 21-year-old college basketball player worth a reported $800,000. Across the room is his teammate, the one whose agent threatened to send him packing if he didn’t get a pseudo-salary increase.
This is maybe a bit simplistic — even slightly unfair — summation of the Miami men’s basketball team, but it is not inaccurate, either. Nowhere in the Sweet 16 is the new world order of college athletics more well represented than within the Hurricanes locker room. While the NCAA dithers with how to regulate NIL and other coaches wring their hands with worry about its impact, Miami has unapologetically jumped in with both feet.
Backed by a brazen billionaire booster who has no qualms about sharing his financial investments, the No. 5 seed Hurricanes are led by Nijel Pack, the pint-sized point guard transfer from Kansas State who supposedly pocketed the northside of three-quarters of a million dollars, and Isaiah Wong, the aggressive leading scorer, who used Pack’s good fortune to improve his own situation.
There is nothing wrong with what Miami is doing. While the NCAA sanctioned the women’s team for improper contact with John Ruiz, the booster/owner of LifeWallet, and his very public courting of the TikTok-starring Cavinder twins, the men’s team was not even part of the investigation. And so it comes down to, really, a simple question: is Miami a renegade, or simply ahead of the curve? “I use this analogy,’’ head coach Jim Larranaga says. “I asked our players if they’ve ever seen Steph Curry in a Subway commercial, and everybody has. I said, ‘OK. That’s NIL.’ You can make some additional money. That’s what NIL was made to do, and that’s what they’re doing.’’
All of that serves as the explanatory backdrop to Ruiz’s hobby, for lack of a better word, and why, when states began to break down the last walls separating college athletes and payment, he found a new way to spend his money. He earmarked $10 million for Miami athletes in the first year of NIL. “Obviously the University of Miami was good for me, but it’s been great for a lot of kids,’’ he says. “You want to do good in your community. This is my community.’’
Ruiz’s NIL bankrolling isn’t entirely different from the various collectives sponsored by alums at schools across the country; it just so happens to be funded by one man. It’s more the very public way he broadcast his investments and the implications of his methods that raised people’s hackles. Per the NCAA language, “While opening name, image and likeness opportunities for student-athletes, the policy in all three divisions preserves the commitment to avoid pay-for-play and improper inducements tied to choosing to attend a particular school. Those rules remain in effect.’’ Which is where it all gets messy. The language is nebulous at best, and wildly subject to interpretation, but there seems to be at least consensus: Actively and publicly wooing players with deals is not done.
And yet there was Ruiz, perceived at least to be running right up to — and in one case perhaps crossing over — the line in the span of a rather busy three weeks at the start of the 2022-23 preseason. On April 13, 2022, Ruiz posted a picture outside his home with Haley and Hanna Cavinder, the social media-famous basketball twins who were transferring from Fresno State. Ten days later, on the same day Miami announced Pack (a first-team All-Big 12 guard) had transferred in, Ruiz tweeted his own “breaking news,” announcing not only his company’s NIL partnership but the terms of the deal.
One week after that, Wong’s agent, Adam Papas, threatened a transfer if Wong’s comparatively low $100,000 NIL pot wasn’t sweetened (Wong later distanced himself from the threat). Ruiz initially played hardball, telling ESPN that he “did not renegotiate” but later tweeted that he looked forward to helping Wong, who led the Hurricanes to the Elite Eight a year ago, find more deals. It all eventually landed in the crosshairs of the NCAA, but only the dinner with the Cavinder twins was deemed impermissible conduct and the chef-prepared dinner Ruiz served that night as an inducement. “NIL adjacent,’’ is how the national governing body termed the whole case.
